Re: info & physics

At 07:52 PM 23/05/02, Gottfried wrote:

> >There are some standard
>arguments from various sources, notably Quine and Wittgenstein,
>that a private language is not a meaningful language. Why should I
>suppose that self-contained musings contain any information
>at all? I certain can't accept that this is part of the meaning of
>"information".<
>
>My argument does not point out to a private language. The language may be as
>common as possible, but its meanings are not the same for the participants.
>It is held private (in thought), untill it is uttered again, serving as
>noise for other participants information construction. This may seem a
>"radical" standpoint. But at the social level, there is no other chance to
>distinguish between (personal) consciousness and (societarian)
>communication.

The arguments against a private language are arguments against a
private meaning. The idea is, basically, that ideas can take on meaning
only through how they are used in the world. Mostly, both Quine and
Wittgenstein argue that there is no other way for ideas, concepts or
words to get meaning. Both would also agree that different people at
different times could assign different meanings to the same (I am
inclined to say information, and I don't know any other word general
enough). You are saying that they assign different information to
the same whatever it is that can be assigned information (syntax?
events? data? physical phenomena?). I'm not worried about this.
I am worried that your position seems to imply that meanings
are entirely private. The Wittgensteinian argument is that this leaves
them devoid of any explanatory role. The Quinean argument is that
this would completely underdetermine their interpretation. Donald
Davidson suggested the way around this is to interpret whatever
anyone says or does according to the principle of charity, so that
as much as possible of what they say comes out true, and as much
as possible of what they do makes sense. Information seems to me
to be completely redundant in such a strategy. I suppose there are
other strategies to deal with what my colleague CB Martin calls
the New Cartesianism, but I haven't seen any yet that look
very promising, and I have been looking for over twenty years.

My own view is that a naturalistic interactionism in which information
flows in from our environment, and we learn how to use it,
thus giving it meaning, is the way to go. It denies the strict distinction
between individual people (minds) and the social, biological physical
environment, and instead builds interaction into the very definition of
what it is to be an autonomous individual.

John

----------
Dr John Collier john.collier@kla.univie.ac.at
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
Adolf Lorenz Gasse 2 +432-242-32390-19
A-3422 Altenberg Austria Fax: 242-32390-4
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Received on Fri May 24 15:59:32 2002